School Based Occupational Therapy – Tips for Effective Service Delivery

Do you work with students who you refer to school based occupational therapy? When students struggle with fine motor skills, self-regulation, sensory processing, handwriting, organization, or other activities of daily living, they may need extra support to function in the educational environment.  Do you work with students who you refer to school-based occupational therapy?  Perhaps you are a parent whose child will be receiving an evaluation for occupational therapy in the schools?  Or maybe you are an Occupational Therapist needing guidance on how to provide effective services in the school setting?  Whatever the case may be, you all most likely want to help children succeed in school.  When students struggle with fine motor skills, self-regulation, sensory processing, handwriting, organization, or other activities of daily living, they may need extra support to function in the educational environment.

Six Steps of Effective Service Delivery of School-Based Occupational Therapy

This process varies from school to school and state to state.  The suggestions below are meant to be an outline not a step by step guide.  Check with your local school district regarding specific regulations.

Offer Support in the Classroom

Before a student is referred for school-based occupational therapy, usually the teacher or school staff has tried offering support in the classroom perhaps using multitiered systems of support.  For example, maybe changing the student’s seating or offering a different type of pencil to see if the student is more successful.  After strategies have been tried without success the school staff may request help from the team and recommend the student to be reviewed by the instructional support team.  Additional strategies may be discussed and implemented.  If there is no progress, an occupational therapy evaluation may be necessary.

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School Based Occupational Therapy Evaluation is Completed

Once approved, the school-based Occupational Therapist will conduct an evaluation.  It should be comprehensive and include the screening of all areas of occupation, record review, interviews, observations during natural routines, and assessments (if needed).

Analyze OT Evaluation Findings

After the evaluation is complete and documented, review the findings to hypothesize why participation challenges are occurring for the student.  Using the findings from the evaluation, try stating the educational difficulties that the student is experiencing and attempt to determine what skills (or lack of) are affecting the student’s success.

Teamwork is crucial!

It can be hard to find the time but it is crucial that the team works together to determine the student’s needs.  Work together (include the student) to create IEP goals to address these needs.

Begin the OT Services

Once approved, the school-based Occupational Therapist can begin to provide valuable occupational therapy services in the school setting.

Collect Data

One of the most important steps is to collect frequent, quantitative data to determine the effectiveness of the intervention.  When therapists, teachers, staff, and students collect data it helps to determine what works best for the student.

Use the Data

Remember to USE the data!  Work together with the team to make data-driven decisions.  This will help decide whether to continue with the plan of care, make changes, or discontinue services.

References: Clark, G. F., Watling, R., Parham, L. D., & Schaaf, R. (2019). Occupational Therapy Interventions for Children and Youth With Challenges in Sensory Integration and Sensory Processing: A School-Based Practice Case ExampleAmerican Journal of Occupational Therapy73(3), 7303390010p1-7303390010p8.

Need resources for school based occupational therapy?

Data Tracking Forms for School-Based Occupational and Physical Therapy Updated 2018

Data Tracking Forms for School-Based Occupational and Physical Therapy UPDATED 2018 includes 10 data collection forms for monitoring progress in occupational and physical therapy in the school setting.  Document up to 4 IEP goals per student in your daily sessions in Excel and it will graph your data directly from your session notes.  These Data Tracking Forms for School-Based Occupational and Physical Therapy will make data collection so much easier!

School-based Occupational Therapist Thia Triggs has developed this fine motor skills assessment for occupational therapy titled the Functional Evaluation of Fine Motor Skills. 

The Functional Evaluation of Fine Motor Skills is a clinical observation tool which precisely and comprehensively documents the many components of fine motor function. In order to optimize your clinical observations and clinical reasoning, and to pinpoint the underlying causes and distinct fine motor skill deficits that your client has, you can use the Functional Evaluation of Fine Motor Skills for individuals ages 5-year-old-to-Adult. (This is included in the Fine Motor Bundle)

Do you work with students who you refer to school based occupational therapy? When students struggle with fine motor skills, self-regulation, sensory processing, handwriting, organization, or other activities of daily living, they may need extra support to function in the educational environment.